


Lush

by what_alchemy



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Aging, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:26:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim wonders if the bond can endure the indignities of aging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lush

Jim came awake at the insistent pressure of a full bladder. In the hazy, unreal moments between sleep and consciousness, Jim’s reality melted and burst like a Dali painting. He believed, as always, that he could lull himself back into the warm nothingness of sleep, but by the time that thought surfaced, he was too coherent, too awake, and too aware of his need to relieve himself for that to be an option. He sighed and rolled to sit at the edge of his side of the bed, his bones creaking and eliciting an involuntary groan from somewhere in the middle of his chest. The right side of the bed was already cold, of course, the blanket folded neatly down and the sheets immaculate as if his lover emerged from sleep a gossamer apparition that disturbed nothing when it moved silently from place to place. Jim levered himself onto his feet and progressed with his graceless morning gait toward the bathroom, where he pulled his underwear completely off before aiming his stream of urine into the toilet with as much care as he was capable of mustering first thing in the morning. He sighed and rolled his neck, eyes closed, until it was time to give himself a shake, wipe at the toilet’s rim, and flush.

It was as he exited that a flash of angry red caught his attention, and he paused to face the mirror full on. At first he thought he was hallucinating, his thoughts muddled and vision bleary from sleep, but hasty rubs at his dry, tired eyes proved the truth: there along the lower curve of his stomach, below his bellybutton and extending along his hips, was a series of jagged stretch marks. Jim uttered an incoherent sound of distress and possibly an expletive, leaning in over the sink to get closer to the mirror.

“Lights 100%,” he demanded, his voice still recovering from rest but nonetheless registering his grave offense. There they were in sharp relief, quite literally, as he ran his fingertips over them to confirm their existence. They rose up to interrupt his skin like smooth, comfortable interlopers. “Christ,” he muttered. He craned his neck downward and lifted his belly to look at them without the intermediary of the mirror. They were nestled there side by side like sleepy cuckoo chicks who never thought to doubt their welcome. They were so red, their quality so rubbery and foreign, that he couldn’t believe they didn’t hurt, couldn’t believe he hadn’t instantly noticed their arrival, whenever that had been, as if they owed him an entire parade in warning.

Jim looked up into the mirror again and saw not himself, but an old man whose thinning hair had gone a tarnished, dismal grey, whose body had softened and expanded and betrayed him, whose bones protested the weather and whose skin bunched and withered, sagged and discolored at the most disadvantageous locations possible. His heart stuttered at the sight, and he released his grip on his stomach. Sudden embarrassment swept through him like a hot breeze, the blush mottling his bloated body and face in a manner so unattractive that he made a sound of disgust and turned away, rushing to exit the bathroom.

As the door slid shut behind him, Jim gasped a deep breath that was less cleansing than he intended. Without care to his nudity, he strode to the immense bedroom windows and threw open the curtains, sunlight pouring in even as it cast its rays along the clear blue waves of the bay. The air would be warm but crisp, the fog having abated and the rain retreating for now. Autumn had come to San Francisco, and, apparently, to Jim’s life. He turned away and yanked a tee-shirt and a pair of running shorts out of the drawers and pulled them on, noticing acutely how his belly strained against the front of the tee and the shorts pulled taut across his expansive thighs, the elastic biting into the flesh at his hips. He shook his head minutely as if to spite the reality that had so confounded him on this painfully illuminating morning. He hurried into his office and flicked on the com’s view screen. He pressed the first number on the speed dial and waited for the familiar surly visage of his former CMO.

“Damnit, Jim, do you know what time it is here?”

Jim noted that McCoy, too, was looking a little tired, a little grey around the edges. He couldn’t figure out how he hadn’t seen it before.

“I have stretch marks, Bones,” he blurted. “Big, hideous stretch marks, and I’m fat. Like, full on manboobs, I’m about to give birth to a Christmas ham kind of fat.”

McCoy sat back, and Jim watched as he seemed to exhaust himself laughing. Jim crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, lips pursed.

“Yeah, yeah, get it out of your system,” he said. “Don’t hurt yourself mustering up some compassion, _doctor_.”

McCoy recovered himself, seemingly unable to stop little sighs from bubbling up in the aftermath of such uproarious laughter.

“Well, now, Jim-boy,” he drawled. “I see you’ve finally come to live on the same plane as the rest of us, the one where we know we aren’t the firm young bucks we used to be. Especially you.”

“You wound me, Bones. Now tell me how to get rid of these, and I’ll let you go back to whatever Southern cliché you were acting out before I called you. Home dermal regenerator or will I have to get medical-grade for these beasts?”

McCoy’s expression soured a little, and he shifted in his seat as if it were particularly uncomfortable.

“It’s not that simple, Jim,” he said, voice suddenly gruff. “You’ve been gaining weight for the better part of twenty years. Frankly, you’re about to cross from politely overweight to undeniably obese, and I can’t believe these are your first stretch marks. You probably have more and haven’t noticed, like faint white ones on your thighs or arms.”

“Bones - ”

“A medical-grade regenerator will get rid of them for sure, Jim. But that’s like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. You’ll keep getting them as long as you keep gaining weight. And I know you’ve been ignoring my medical advice for more than half your life at this point, but Jim, you’ve got to lose weight. It’s not just the stretch marks. The stretch marks are the least of it.”

Jim stared at his friend, whose distress at his condition was so clear though thousands of miles separated them. He felt sweat spring up along his back and forehead, and an unnamed horror threatened to overwhelm him.

“Say what you’re saying, Bones.”

“I’m saying, Jim, that you’re on your way to a heart attack, sooner rather than later. I’ve been trying to get you to change your habits since that time you busted the seam of your trousers in the mess.”

“No,” Jim snapped, flushing with sudden anger. McCoy’s eyebrow arched skyward in surprise at his vehemence. “No, you were just on my ass constantly about not eating what I wanted to. You never said –”

“Come off it, Jim. Don’t you blame me for this. You did it to yourself by consistently and continuously ignoring my recommendations for a healthier diet for _years_. You don’t get to put this on me.”

Jim clenched his teeth. “Sorry,” he said, trying to mean it. “I know it’s not your fault. I just... I didn’t know, you know? I looked in the mirror when I woke up and had no idea how I’d gotten like this.”

McCoy inhaled and exhaled slowly, regarding Jim with a penetrating scrutiny that made him want to squirm as if he were a child facing due punishment.

“Time and age happen to all of us, Jim. I’ll forward you a packet for the exercise routine you should undertake, and the dietary changes. Can you be serious about this? Can you be serious when it’s life and death?”

“I’m always serious about life and death, Bones.”

“Don’t be glib. This is different than your adrenaline-fueled away missions gone wrong. This is about taking responsibility, owning your lifestyle, and reclaiming your health. I’m asking: can you do this?”

Jim’s insides were roiling, his skin overheated. He had been ignoring his weight for years, and with a burst of clarity he knew it. Low down, in the space he kept in his mind for not lying to himself, he’d always believed it was temporary, no big deal, and that he’d get back to his fighting weight when he had the time, when he was less stressed, when his life calmed down. But the whole thing looked different when it was about to kill him. The whole thing looked like a really flimsy excuse.

“Yes,” he whispered.

—

The paperwork outlining dietary changes and exercise routines that McCoy sent over was comprehensive and overwhelming. Jim had intended to discuss it with Spock, whom he imagined would be secretly glad to get things like bacon and red meat out of the kitchen, but afternoon gave way to evening gave way to night, and Spock wasn’t home. Another late night at the labs, waiting on a miracle, as Jim privately considered Spock’s latest Sisyphean exercise in the stark science buildings. After his office hours, Jim took the scenic route walking home and spent the afternoon discarding all the verboten food items he kept stocked in the fridge.

He’d learned to cook after the two of them were grounded, unwilling to continue on a replicated diet, and unwilling to let Spock set fire to the entire complex with his own efforts. The results of his unexpected facility in the kitchen for the past few years, however, were obvious now that he’d been slapped about the head by the fact of his own girth. The fatigue, the trouble catching his breath, the poor circulation, among other gruesome symptoms of his long-term gluttony and sloth. As he scrubbed newly empty storage containers and long-stained refrigerator shelves – by hand, for the focus it lent him – he began to burn with the thought that Spock was disgusted by his body. Or, worse, that Spock no longer cared enough even to notice. Their bed had been cold for a long time. Longer, Jim realized, than since Spock’s latest mad scientist scheme had captured his attention.

Vulcans – or, rather, Spock – made noise about the katric bond lasting beyond life, beyond death. When they were young men, they used to bring the covers up over their heads as if to block out the wide universe, luxuriating in their union, in their oneness, forehead to forehead, bodies hot against one another in the ecstatic press of totally encompassing love. Jim now wondered bitterly, watching his meaty fingers squeeze around an ill-used sponge, if the bond could endure the indignity of aging.

—

Jim blinked into the darkness of the bedroom as he heard Spock shuffle in just before 0200. Though his back was turned, Jim knew by rote the sound of Spock peeling off his shirt, struggling out of his trousers, folding and draping his garments over a chair on his side of the room. He could hear, in the oppressive silence, the minute sigh Spock gave as he sat on his side of the bed and rubbed the day’s aches from his knee. The bed depressed as Spock pivoted and lay down, his right leg stiff and unyielding as he wrestled with the blanket, his efforts not to disturb Jim thwarting his efforts to make himself comfortable.

“I’m awake,” Jim grunted, not turning over. Something near his lungs ached at his spiteful reluctance to reach out and soothe Spock’s pains with his own hands, but Jim held fast to his bruised pride, his hands clutched in fists in front of him.

“Hello, Jim.” Spock grappled more deliberately with the covers until he was underneath them fully, then he wriggled over and spooned up behind Jim, nestling into his shoulder. With some strain, he insinuated his right leg between both of Jim’s and sighed, settling into what was once his favored sleeping position. Jim stiffened in his arms, the heat of the embrace suddenly a pale reminder instead of a comfort.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Preparing for sleep,” Spock rumbled into his neck. Jim could feel his eyelashes fluttering closed against his skin.

“Do you have to do it like that?”

“Like what?”

“All... close, like that.”

Spock drew back, a hand still resting on Jim’s hip, legs still tangled.

“I thought you preferred to sleep thus,” he said.

“We’re not young anymore, Spock.”

“...that is a non-sequitur.”

“We haven’t slept like that in forever. You just come in here after working all night and lie there like a corpse. I never see you, and all of the sudden you want to be all over me? Just... could you just get off me?”

Spock extricated himself, the bed shifting as he moved onto his back and pulled his right leg into position with his hands and a huff of breath.

“It seems we are overdue for a discussion,” he said.

“‘ _It seems_ ,’” Jim sneered.

“Turn over and we will have our discussion.”

“No. I’m sleeping.”

“A logistic impossibility, as you are coherent and speaking to me.”

“Don’t. I’m not in the mood for your logic and fake literalism tonight, so just leave it. Go to sleep.”

“I have offended you somehow, and you refuse to allow me to address your concerns and make reparations. I do not wish to ‘leave it,’ as you say.”

Jim squeezed his eyes shut in the dark, letting out a slow, shaking breath, already missing all of Spock’s skin against his own. He felt that if he began to speak, he wouldn’t be able to stop until the sun spilled orange over the horizon and his tongue swelled in his mouth and he’d been stripped of all his dignity.

“I’m just tired of you not being around,” he grumbled, all his ire abruptly feeble in the face of so bland a complaint.

“I will spend less time in the labs. I will be sure to return in time for dinner from now on.”

A tableau of his new dinners unfurled in Jim’s mind, a flavorless buffet of carefully-controlled miniature portions and not-butter.

“I’m not your housewife,” Jim said, tone churlish. “I’m not sitting around with dinner waiting on the table, you know.”

“I know.”

“Stop being so fucking agreeable!”

“Jim.”

“Stop. Just stop talking. Go to sleep.”

Just before he fell asleep himself, fitful and trying not to turn lest he have to face his infuriatingly placid lover, Jim felt Spock’s warm hand rest on his hip and stay there.

—

When Spock began to arrive back at the apartment in time for dinner for the first time in weeks, Jim really did have the meal waiting on the table. Almost a month into Jim’s new routine, it was steamed asparagus and half a cup of brown rice for them both, a fist-sized filet of salmon seasoned only with onions and bell peppers for Jim, and a similarly-flavored medley of chopped portobellos and eggplant for Spock. Jim looked up from his padd when Spock entered. Jim offered no greeting, but led the way to the kitchen table and nodded for Spock to sit down. As Jim poured water, Spock said,

“Thank you, Jim. This meal looks most pleasing.”

Jim shrugged one shoulder, refusing to meet Spock’s eyes as he slid in across from him. He pushed around a stalk of asparagus, dreading having to choke it down. He always avoided greens if he could. But that’s what got him into this mess, he remembered, lifting one stalk to his lips and forcing himself to chew and swallow without a grimace. The silence that weighed down the atmosphere seemed to disturb even Spock, who was the king of awkward silences, in Jim’s opinion.

“My team and I successfully isolated the regenerative gene from the Mesclt’oti invertebrates,” Spock said. “We were pursuing two paths: the first, splicing its DNA with that of mice, with the ultimate goal of splicing it with that of humanoid species’; the second, further study of the gene in an effort to recreate its effects in humanoid species without genetic manipulation. Both groups can work independently of me at this stage, and I am pleased to be taking my meals with you again.”

Jim ventured a glance up at Spock’s face. That face was lined, having weathered the same years as Jim’s multitudinous dips and wrinkles, and it held so much hope. Hope, Jim realized, that Jim would forgive him the transgressions he still didn’t understand he’d made. He was different than the Vulcan Jim had bonded with in his heady, love drunk youth. He was half-human, and he had found a measure of peace with his own dual nature that his younger self had battled against so fiercely. He was whole, all on his own. It made Jim curiously sad even as his whole body warmed at the sight of Spock so plainly, unabashedly happy with his life. The life he shared with Jim, he had to remind himself. He squelched his usual irritation at having to listen ad nauseam to the futile Mesclt’oti experiments.

“Good. That’s good, Spock. I’m glad you got that far.”

“It is an exciting development,” Spock agreed, eating with zeal. “I must say, Jim, dinner these past weeks has been quite fine. None of your usual culinary theatrics.” Brown eyes sparkled at him from across the table, Spock’s version of a teasing smile. The comment annoyed him, though.

“What’s wrong with my usual dinners?”

Spock’s mouth snapped shut, and Jim continued, his volume steadily increasing and his face steadily reddening.

“You don’t make dinner, so I have to. I make your vegetables and your funny Vulcan dishes and I use your weird herbs to make you happy. I come home after a long day too, you know, and then I make dinner and make sure this place is in order, and you come in here and call the food I prepare _for you_ ‘theatrical’, and then you’re gonna go sit on your bony ass in your office reading the newsfeeds and the science journals while I clean up. Later I’ll try to get you to talk to me, but you’ll be too engrossed in whatever they found on the newest deep space expeditions to even look at me. Gee, Spock, we sure are living the dream.” When he was finished, Jim was shaking, the scowl he directed at Spock threatening to immolate him where he sat.

Spock set down his utensils.

“You are angry.”

“Wow, Spock! What a leap of intuition there! I’m glad you’re psychic, because otherwise you’d never have known!”

Spock’s jaw clenched and his brows drew down. His own anger was slow to ignite, but Jim relished the thought that he was feeding the sparks.

“Admit what’s really bothering you,” Spock said with the same authority he used to command a starship’s crew.

“I just did, you total shit.”

“No, you are describing the symptoms, not the root of your discontent. Tell me the truth.”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about, Spock?”

Spock rose to his feet too quickly, a tremulous, almost imperceptible wince the only evidence that such an action probably sent fire blazing down his leg. He glowered down at Jim, not bothering to contain the fury that made him a deadly adversary, no matter the state of his leg.

“You resent that when I was grounded, you were also grounded by extension. You resent that my injury put an end to _your_ exploration of space. You resent _me_.”

Jim gaped up at him, all his vitriol dying before it could form hurtful words.

“What? Spock, no. No, that’s not –”

“You recoil from my touch. You cast hateful looks in my direction. You deliberately misinterpret playful comments as insults. You denigrate my heritage and preferences. You scorn my experiments. You are quick to turn your anger on me. You expect —”

Spock seemed to deflate visibly, and he heaved a deep breath, tilting dangerously to his left. Jim was up at his side in an instant, but he pushed Jim’s hands away and eased himself into his chair.

“You expect me to bear your anger with equanimity, and to let you continue to lash out at me without consequence,” he finished in a defeated whisper. Jim stared down at him, his arms hanging awkward and powerless at his sides. He shook his head.

“No, Spock.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, look. Listen.” Jim pulled a chair out and sat close enough to touch. He could reach out and massage around Spock’s knee just the way he liked it, the way he couldn’t do it himself. Jim could do that for Spock now, but he didn’t. Spock wouldn’t look at him. “I don’t resent you,” Jim said, “and I don’t blame you, and I’m not... I’m not somehow unhappy with our lives here. What I’ve been unhappy about lately isn’t just one thing, and it, it isn’t that I’m not in space, okay? It’s other stuff, and your not being here to talk about it with me has been... a strain on me.” He cast out a hand, indicating the uneaten food. “This was just... I’m trying to be more healthy, and I’m not exactly taking the transition well, and I just, I didn’t want to hear about how I _used to_ make dinner when I can’t even have it anymore. I overreacted, obviously, but I just – I’m sorry, Spock.”

“I’m sorry,” Spock echoed weakly. Jim nodded, watching Spock swallow around all the stuff he’d, they’d, left unsaid. Jim reached his hands out and set to easing the muscles that had locked up around the frayed popliteal nerve. Jim wasn’t a complete idiot; he was only grateful that all the phaser fire took from Spock in the surprise shoot out on a supposedly friendly planet three years ago was his regal gait.

—

Jim had taken to jogging from his apartment to the academy before his lectures and showering in a nearby gym beforehand so as not to cause everyone within a ten foot radius to pass out from the fumes. The mild northern California winter was on its way, and he’d donned a light layer against the threatening rain. Halfway between T’Samas Hall and the botany complex, creeping black stars encroached on his vision, and he swayed. He managed to sit on a bench and put his head between his knees, but he couldn’t gain his equilibrium and nausea rolled his stomach, hot as fear.

“Admiral?” came a small voice from his right. Jim only moaned in response. “Okay, I’m calling a medic.” Jim paid little attention as the cadet made the call and then sat next to him waiting for help to arrive. “Don’t worry,” she said faintly.

At the clinic, the nurses shepherded him into a private room, fussed over him and ran their tricorders repeatedly. A minor headache had replaced the dizziness and nausea, but the buzz from the equipment did nothing to soothe Jim’s frazzled nerves.

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I was just dizzy for a second. It was nothing.”

The doctor on duty looked impossibly young to Jim’s eyes, scrubbed and earnest. She looked like nothing about the state of the world had broken her down into the smallest pieces of herself yet.

“Your heart was in overdrive for a little while there, Admiral, so with respect, you’re not fine,” she said. “Tell me, is this exercise thing new for you?”

Jim flattened his mouth and sent her a hooded glare. “Obviously,” he bit out, gesturing toward his stubborn belly.

“Did you consult your physician before starting out?” she asked, either oblivious or willfully bulldozing through Jim’s chagrin.

“ _My physician_ sent me all the diet and exercise information I’ve been following.”

“Did you get a stress test first? Did anyone declare you fit to exercise? Go through the cardio with you to tell you how much you should push it and when you shouldn’t?”

“Look, can you save the finger-wagging? I get it. I did it wrong. I’ll do better in the future.”

The doctor, Dr. Krishnar, her nametag read, sighed and sent him a little glare. Somehow it made him feel more at ease.

“Well, fine. But no caffeine, no more than an hour of cardio a day until you’re stronger, and yes, I will be monitoring your progress personally.”

“Dr. McCoy can monitor me.”

“Admiral Kirk, Dr. McCoy is retired, and he’s not even in this time zone. Whether you like it or not, you’re in Starfleet’s care, and I’m your doctor from now on.”

Jim scowled at her, but had no retort.

“You can go home,” she said, “but we’ve commed Captain Spock, and you’ll wait here until he arrives to escort you.”

“Jesus! I’m not a child!”

“This is a prescription for clopidogrel, which will help prevent a heart attack in the future. You can resume exercise, but stay hydrated and don’t overdo it. You’ve got an appointment with me in one month.” Krishnar tucked her padd under her arm and moved toward the door. She paused and just before leaving, she said, “Don’t miss it, Admiral. I’m not afraid to make house calls.” The door slid shut behind her.

Jim sat back when she left, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and sighing out a curse. He was saved from pondering if Spock would wait until a suitable break in his experiments to come get him by Spock’s abrupt appearance in the doorway, a little out of breath, lips parted, leaning to his left, his expression one of total devastation. Even his bangs were a little askew. Jim’s mouth parted at the sight.

“Oh, Spock.”

At that, Spock rushed over without care to his knee and then Jim was crushed tight against his body.

“I’m okay,” Jim said, “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.”

Spock only hitched him closer, burrowing his face deeper into the juncture where Jim’s shoulder met his neck, a small, anguished sound escaping his gullet.

“Oh, God,” Jim gasped, some thick, unnamable emotion rising in his throat and making his voice crack. “Spock.”

“ _T’hy’la_.”

“Your knee’s gonna give out.”

Spock released him, but gripped his hand as Jim helped him take a seat next to him on the cot. Spock sagged against him, as if his mere proximity was enough to release some kind of ancient tension. He rested his head on Jim’s shoulder, and Jim rubbed his back, and they were silent but for their breathing.

After long moments Spock’s hand came up to cup Jim’s face, drawing him in for an unexpectedly demanding kiss. Spock’s mouth was as fevered as the first time he pressed it to Jim’s own almost thirty-five years ago, and Jim was keenly aware of how long ago that had been, how long ago it had been since they’d last touched each other in passion, and how time had compressed to bring them this moment free of the frailties of their bodies and the tumult of their histories. Jim moaned, feeling an exquisite drowning sensation, Spock’s taste a drugging force overcoming, for now, his insecurities, his doubts, his sense of propriety. One hand tangled in the silken black hair and the other clutched convulsively at Spock’s uniform, holding on as if Spock were the only anchor keeping him from sliding off the edge of the world.

Spock eased Jim off with both hands framing his face, his thumbs tracing Jim’s cheekbones in reverence. He leaned his forehead against Jim’s, and they closed their eyes.

“I did not know you had begun a regular exercise routine,” Spock said, his lips ghosting over Jim’s.

Jim brought his hands around to either side of Spock’s neck, letting out a long breath.

“I didn’t tell you because I was... I was embarrassed and too proud. I thought, I thought a lot of stupid shit you’re gonna tell me is illogical.”

“Tell me,” Spock said. His tone was imploring and contained a disquieting edge of desperation.

Jim drew back further, arranging himself beside Spock as comfortably as the cot would allow. He laid a hand on Spock’s stricken knee, gently rubbing. Spock’s arm came around his back.

“I saw myself in the mirror and just... like lightning hit me, you know?” Jim took a deep breath. “To look at what I’d let myself become. I called Bones in a panic about the stretch marks, and he told me in no uncertain terms that I was heading for a heart attack. I was... afraid. God, Spock, I’ve never been afraid for myself, you know?” Spock nodded. “And then you didn’t come home until really late, and I was so tired of spending all my days at work and my evenings alone, and I was mad at you for putting me in this position where I had to deal with this huge thing by myself. And I know I should have just told you or commed you or something, but I _missed_ you and I wanted to look at you and feel you and have you just _know_ , you know?” Spock nodded again. Jim fidgeted for a moment before continuing.

“I began to think you didn’t want me anymore, that you were more interested in your experiments than me. I was trying to lose weight and get healthy again, but I didn’t even want you to see me trying because you might think I was totally pathetic. I mean, I thought I was pathetic, and I was the one doing it. Pathetic for letting it get this bad, and pathetic for having to try so hard and make this boring-ass food and not just, I don’t know, overcome the limitations of my body and my age with the epic power of my mind. And you’d come home from the labs and make this shitty polite conversation and then hole away in your study having barely glanced in my direction, and I just... it compounded that whole feeling that you’d lost interest, or that you thought I was disgusting with all this extra weight, and yeah, you left me with the dishes and the mess to clean up every night and it just seemed like this whole metaphor for our entire lives.” Jim’s mouth twisted, and he lifted his shoulder self-consciously in apology for his illogic.

“I’m sorry,” Spock said, eyes intent on Jim’s. “You’ve been so angry of late. I thought it best to allow you to be alone, since my presence seemed to aggravate your poor mood. I could not see that this assumption further exacerbated it.”

“I know I was a shit to you. I’m sorry, too.”

“I have not lost interest. I could never lose interest. And your body certainly does not disgust me. I know I am not... demonstrative, or given to flowery declarations, but I find words inadequate for describing what I feel for you. You are the chosen partner of my life, and beyond. You are my home, _ashayam_.”

Jim pressed kisses to both Spock’s eyes, his temple, then his lips.

“I love you, too,” he said, voice rough and low.

“I do not prefer my experiments to you,” Spock said then, hesitation palpable. “Jim, I am not immune to attacks of insecurity simply by virtue of my Vulcan heritage.”

Jim stroked his fingers along Spock’s neck, cocking his head. He ducked down to meet Spock’s clear eyes, a warm, deep chocolate.

“Your turn to tell me.”

“I know discussion of the Mesclt’oti experiments bore you, and that you find them an exercise in futility.” He raised a hand to forestall the protest on Jim’s lips. “But I believed that you had been unhappy as a direct result of our being grounded. I am not certain that you can find true happiness anywhere but among the stars. I believed that I could find a way to replicate the seemingly boundless capabilities of the Mesclt’oti invertebrates to regenerate delicate and complicated body parts, which would be a great contribution to science and medicine, but ultimately my motivation was a selfish one. I believed that if I could fully repair my damaged popliteal nerve, that we could acquire another commission and once again explore space, side by side, and you would cease to find our life together, and me, dissatisfying.”

Jim held Spock’s fingers locked in his own.

“Can I explain myself?” At Spock’s nod, Jim gathered himself and began again. “I’m sixty years old, Spock. And space, the _Enterprise_ , those are some of my most cherished memories, and some of that was the rush and the newness, but most of it was because you were there. But. That last five year mission, I was tired. And when we lost Chekov, and those engineering ensigns, and practically your whole leg, I just... I wanted it to be over. I realized I was playing a young man’s game, and that all I wanted was for you and me, and Bones and everybody, just to be safe somewhere, without the constant threats. And that’s – that shouldn’t be the first thought of a starship’s commanding officer. So you think I’m unhappy being grounded, and I won’t say it hasn’t been an adjustment, even after three years. But I’m not. I like teaching command track. I like being the only Admiral without a bug up his ass. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about pollen or Klingons or cultural misunderstandings resulting in loss of life and limb.

“I never... I have never found you dissatisfying. I’m not frustrated with your knee, and I still, I still look at you and marvel that you chose me. I’m in awe of you all the time, Spock.” He huffed out a self-conscious laugh. “Even when you irritate the hell out of me. I don’t think about your knee as something that’s, I don’t know, in my way? I don’t even think of it as this abnormal thing anymore, just, what can I do to accommodate it, how can I help when it hurts you. I never meant to make you feel like, like it was this burden, and I’m sorry I did. You could never be anything but a sign that I really hit the jackpot somewhere along the way.” Jim leveled a big-eyed, beseeching smile at him. Spock’s spine seemed to loosen, and he even answered that smile with a tiny one of his own.

“I am gratified,” he whispered, leaning in and stealing a kiss. Jim held on to the connection of their lips for a fortifying moment before he took another deep breath and began again. He wanted no misunderstandings left to fester between them.

“Your work with the Mesclt’oti squid things, I don’t know, it’s hard to justify my… distaste,” he started. “But I have all these different objections to it, sometimes paradoxical ones, and I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to separate myself enough from those feelings to offer you support. I won’t list them, or whatever, if you don’t want me to, and I’ll try to keep my whole problem with it to myself from now on.”

“I wish to hear your opinions, even if they differ from my own.”

Jim got up, feeling restless. He began to pace the tiny white room, aware of Spock’s eyes on him, aware that he was unable to meet those eyes.

“I didn’t want you to get your hopes up,” he said. “In hundreds of years of medical progress, even with stem cells and literally growing new nerves for humans, for Vulcans, for Tellarites, whatever, the most we can hope for a popliteal nerve or its equivalent is what Bones managed in sickbay with you practically bleeding out and your leg, your leg _not_ having to be amputated. I thought it was arrogant that you thought you could do this when the brightest minds in the galaxy, minds that specialize in this kind of injury, have never been able to repair a popliteal nerve that was totally destroyed, and I wondered why you weren’t just grateful to be alive, to have your leg, like I was. I know that makes me an asshole.

“And you just, you poured _all_ your time into it, Spock. You know, before we started having dinner again, I could go days, and in one instance a week and a half, without seeing you? You just seemed obsessed, in a way that I’d really never seen you get before. I didn’t understand what was so special about these things, no matter how much you told me about their super awesome amazing powers or their possible immortality. I didn’t understand how even all of that could make you stay away from the apartment. From me. So yeah, I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to see you so hopeful one day and despondent the next. And I didn’t... God, Spock, maybe I didn’t want to see you manage to perform this miracle, because _of course_ it would be you who finally did it, just so you could walk away from me without limping.”

Spock rose carefully but surely and stopped Jim’s nervous canvassing of the small space of the clinic room with two steady hands on his shoulders.

“I will never, ever walk away from you,” he said.

—

They held hands in the aircar all the way home, and when they got to their door, Spock pushed Jim through it with an urgency Jim remembered only distantly, his mouth descending on Jim’s with possessive force. Hot hands snaked under his cotton tee, seeming as eager to grasp hungrily at his lovehandles and — God, his _back fat_ — as they once were to feel the flex of strong muscle under his smooth, taut skin. Jim heaved in a breath as Spock slid his mouth to a point just under his ear that never failed to leave him mewling and thrusting himself shamelessly against Spock.

“Spock,” he gasped. “Wait.”

Spock’s eyes when they met his held a banked fire, smoldering and dark. His body overwhelmed Jim’s line of vision, and an arched brow asked the unvoiced question.

“I got in a pretty serious jog before I went to the clinic,” Jim told him. “I need to shower before we get any further.”

Spock released him, but grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom. They kissed with ravenous appetites for long moments, each kiss pouring into the next, stretching time into interminable intervals measured only by the slick slide of tongues and lips. Eventually Spock sank to a sitting position on the expansive bed to take weight off of his leg. When he pulled away, he said, “Be quick. I cannot wait much longer.”

Jim hurried into the fresher, the sight of Spock taking his glistening penis out of his trousers burning in his peripheral vision. Three minutes later he was sonic-clean and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror again. What he saw now was the hot red shape Spock had sucked into the skin beneath his ear, the bob of his rosy, half-hard cock, and the absolute certainty that he was bonded, body, heart, and mind, to the finest being he’d ever known. He shot a flirtatious smile at himself, winked, and exited the bathroom to find that being sprawled naked on their bed, legs spread, idly fondling his impressive erection, eyes dark and hot and watchful.

Jim’s breath caught. Spock, who had lost muscle tone over the years, whose stomach dipped concave toward his spine, whose ribs were visible for ease of counting, whose thick chest hair was going silver earlier than the hair on his head, was a gorgeous feast laid out just for Jim, as alluring and dangerous in his sexual energy as he ever was in his youth. More so now, Jim realized, than during their heady collisions of body against body as young men newly in love. The Spock before Jim now was comfortable in his body, in his needs and desires, reconciled with himself and totally confident in his ability to make Jim’s brain dribble out of his ears with pleasure. He was a formidable bedmate, and fire licked through Jim’s groin and sent his nipples and his asshole throbbing with the knowledge that they were about to renew and reaffirm their union now.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Jim,” Spock answered, voice made deeper by the arousal thrumming through his blood. He stroked a hand down his own stomach, scratching through his greying pubic hair before giving his cock a slow squeeze. Jim’s mouth watered at the sight. “You are beautiful as you are now, Jim. Beautiful and sensuous. Lush.”

Electricity reverberated down Jim’s spine, his cock twitching with interest. It took him a while to rise to his full proportions these days, but he had learned to savor the searing path Spock took him to get there. He moved over to the bed and lay down half on his side, leaned over Spock’s body and gazed into his face, careful of his leg. He set a hand on Spock’s warm chest, running his fingers through the crisp hair.

“And you, Mr. Spock, are perfect,” he said. “As always.” Spock’s hand came up to tangle in Jim’s hair as they kissed, but Jim pulled away to map once more the planes of Spock’s body: the line of his neck, the ridges of his collarbones, the peaks of his nipples, the small hollow of the bellybutton Jim had always thought of as particularly sweet. Jim sucked at it and relished the gasp Spock gave in response, the involuntary twist at his hair. Jim ventured lower, his heart beginning to hammer in a far less worrying way than earlier. Spock’s penis rose from a bed of pubic hair, thick and seeping its convenient lubrication all along its length.

Jim took Spock into his mouth, one hand pumping the solid column, the other rubbing along the needy muscles of Spock’s afflicted leg. He hummed around Spock’s dick in relief, as if he’d been waiting a lifetime just for a taste of cock. He bobbed happily up and down on the straining organ, sucking and slurping with earnest abandon. Spock moaned deliriously above him, his abs and thighs rippling with pleasure and effort. His hands stayed firmly in Jim’s hair, greedy in their appreciation rather than forceful. Spock’s personal lube, a bland if salty secretion, emerged copiously in his helpless arousal, slicking his pubic hair, his thighs, his ass and Jim’s face. Jim began to wish he had a third hand so he could jerk at his own cock, but Spock sat up and pulled Jim gently off and up, plundering his mouth with kisses. Spock swallowed the grunt Jim issued when he gripped Jim’s full, aching dick and gave it some stern attention.

Spock maneuvered Jim into a prone position and lay half on top of him, his right leg slung around the outside of Jim’s left, their cocks flush against one another, the majority of his own weight supported by his left side. Jim reached down to squeeze their cocks together, the contact hard and hot and slippery and exquisite. Spock refused to stop kissing him, muffling all his moans and curses and sundry declarations, but a long fingered hand began exploring the soft hills and valleys of Jim’s chest and stomach and sent him shuddering. When Spock tweaked a nipple hard enough to bruise, Jim couldn’t help tearing away from his mouth and letting out a loud bellow. Spock bent and laved at the tender bud before sucking at it and sinking his teeth in just how Jim needed it.

“ _Fuck_ , Spock, yes,” he babbled, his free arm coming up around Spock’s neck to hold him in place. “God, I need, I need – ”

“Tell me,” Spock growled around the nipple he was worrying between his teeth.

“Need you to fuck me, Spock. Need you in me, please, _please_.”

“I am taking my time,” he mumbled into Jim’s chest. Jim laughed and scraped a thumbnail along the tip of a pointed ear, eliciting a guttural moan. Spock rose and extricated his cock from Jim’s grasp, spreading Jim’s legs and settling on his stomach between them. Jim gazed down at him with parted lips, the eye contact alone an aphrodisiac. Then Spock leant downwards and set sucking kisses trailing down his chest and over the prominence of his belly. One hand came up to twist harshly at his neglected nipple. Jim’s cock was trapped against Spock’s chest, but the pressure was too light, the friction insufficient, and under the onslaught of sensation, Jim’s eyes slid shut and rolled upwards in their sockets, his throat helpless but to issue filthy grunts and moans. He stroked up and down Spock’s back and along his shoulders even as Spock continued downward. When he reached Jim’s navel, however, he stopped and drew back. Jim forced his eyes open and watched as Spock pushed Jim’s belly up, so gently, to inspect the livid stripes marring his body. Jim tensed.

“Don’t,” he protested, voice weak.

Spock made eye contact again and very deliberately leaned forward and pressed his mouth against the ragged red bands lashing his stomach. Jim’s eyes widened, his gaze caught by Spock’s, as he felt Spock’s tongue begin to catalogue each mark, running up along each rough edge and sending sparks crackling through Jim’s groin and ass.

“Oh,” he choked, giving an unbidden thrust forward. Spock’s eyes closed, and he groaned into Jim’s stomach, his hand closing around Jim’s cock. He pumped it with a steady twisting motion, each pass over the head eliciting a breathy whimper. He nuzzled and sucked at the row of red bars until Jim’s spine was liquid and his head was thrashing. Finally Spock seemed to finish with his stretch marks, and he slid his hands under Jim’s ass and tilted his hips up.

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” Jim panted, hiking his knees up in his hands and baring his greedy asshole with fervor. Spock let out a low growl and shifted enough so that the position didn’t stress his knee. He eyed Jim’s hole with lust, the tiny orifice winking and quivering in anticipation. “Please,” Jim begged. “Please.”

Spock blew a stream of cold air over Jim’s hole and Jim whined, unable to yank at his cock with both hands occupied. Finally Spock set the hot tip of his tongue to the sensitive ring of Jim’s anus, flickering all around it to tease. He laved over and around it with the flat of his tongue, then pressed more insistently at the aperture to coax it to relaxation. Jim whimpered and pled more until Spock wriggled his tongue inside and set his nerves singing. Then Spock sealed his lips around the hole and sucked. Jim wailed Spock’s name and squeezed his eyes shut, reality spiraling down to the sensation of Spock eating his ass. Spock moaned into Jim’s perineum and pressed more intimately into his task, working Jim’s ass pliant with his mouth. One of Spock’s hands disappeared from its place cradling Jim’s pelvis, and Jim knew Spock was jacking himself off with rough, merciless strokes. Rimming had always proved the breaking point for both of them.

“Spock, come on,” Jim begged. “I’m ready and I want you in me right now, Spock, please, now.”

Spock gave in and loomed over him, wiping at his face with a shoulder. Jim opened his arms and drew Spock down to himself. Spock hooked one of Jim’s knees in an elbow and Jim slung his other knee over Spock’s shoulder, Jim’s belly an obstacle, the pair of them half on their sides in deference to Spock’s leg. They paused after they arranged themselves, and Jim’s hand fluttered over Spock’s thigh and ass, stroking with care along the back of the knee.

“This okay?” he murmured.

“There is no undue stress or pain,” Spock said, a little breathless. Jim kissed him, perversely loving the flavor of his own asshole around Spock’s sweltering mouth. Spock pulled away to pay attention as he slathered his own stores of lube around the outside of Jim’s asshole, then pushed his cock in with agonizing patience. Jim exhaled slowly and bore down against the burn, and when Spock was finally fully seated, Jim opened his eyes to find Spock gazing at him open-mouthed in wonder.

“You,” was all Spock said.

Jim made an inarticulate sound in answer, his ass adjusting to an invasion it hadn’t endured for months. Spock made a minute circular movement with his hips, and Jim cried out as the action opened him further, the stretch intense and the penetration deep enough to make him feel like Spock could merge with his body the same way he merged with his mind.

“God,” Jim’s voice shook. “God it’s been so fucking long, Spock. I’ve fucking _missed_ you.”

Spock pressed their chests together, propping himself up on one hand. The other came up to tangle fingers with Jim’s, and he tucked his head into Jim’s shoulder. Jim’s legs trembled.

“As I have missed you, Jim. And longed for you, though you slept beside me. Too long, indeed.”

Jim’s free hand rested on the back of Spock’s head, the hair short and prickly-soft.

“How long?” he whispered.

Spock drew his hips back just a little and drove back in with a rocking movement.

“Four months,” he said, his breath humid and coming faster on Jim’s neck, “twelve days, nineteen hours and, and – ”

Jim tugged on Spock’s hair to capture his mouth. His leg slid off Spock’s shoulder and he let it fall to the side. Spock began plunging in with more force as Jim’s discomfort subsided, punctuating each thrust with a grunt that made Jim’s cock twitch and roll. Jim’s eyes slid half shut as he surrendered to being filled and owned and so cherished. Spock let go of Jim’s hand and grabbed his hip, lifting him and thrusting upwards, striking his prostate with ruthless precision.

“Fuck!”

“ _Jim_.” Spock’s voice was a growl. He rolled further onto his back, dragging Jim up over him to sit impaled on his cock. Jim threw his head back and screamed as Spock went deep and bumped his prostate in the process. Jim splayed his knees on the bed to get steady, leaning back and holding onto Spock’s good leg to steady himself. He used the leverage to rise and fall on Spock’s dick as Spock held his hips and met Jim with timely counter thrusts, occasionally pinching a nipple or caressing the curve of Jim’s stomach. Jim’s words failed him, his only utterances agonized sobs as he slammed his ass repeatedly onto Spock’s dick. When Jim reached down to jerk himself off, Spock joined him, their combined grip tight and delicious. Jim’s ass began to clench as rapturous pressure built at the base of his spine and radiated to his balls. His movements stuttered and froze as orgasm raged through him, lights and colors panning behind his eyelids. Distantly he was aware of his own shouting and Spock holding him steady even as his cock was forced from Jim’s ass.

Jim slumped forward panting, and Spock rubbed down his back. He drew one of Jim’s knees up and positioned his cock again, driving upward and inhaling sharply. Jim hummed and turned his head to nudge Spock’s mouth with lazy wet kisses. Spock’s hands groped at his ass, roaming its vaster expanse as if grateful that there was more to commit to memory, petting the downy hair on his cheeks. Jim found the strength to sit up halfway, bracing his hands on Spock’s shoulders and staring down at him as he humped up into Jim’s ass. Spock’s eyes opened to slits and Jim gave him a slow, satisfied smile. Spock moaned and brought his hands up to cup Jim’s face.

“Look at me,” he said, his voice sounding as if it had crawled through fire and gravel to get out of his throat.

Jim caught Spock’s fingertips in his mouth and Spock gave a cry. Never letting his gaze waver from Spock’s, Jim held Spock’s wrist as he sucked three of Spock’s fingers as hard as he could, letting his teeth nip the pads. Spock’s thrusts grew graceless and erratic, his low, continuous moan transforming into a bellow. Jim bit down on Spock’s thumb and he went rigid and screamed, his cock as deeply buried in Jim as possible, his head whipping to one side, his face twisted in ecstasy, his hand on Jim’s hip bruising deep down into the muscle. Jim paid it no mind, savoring the hot spunk flooding his ass and the dazed look that had stolen over Spock’s features. It softened the lines around his mouth and on his forehead, and suddenly Jim felt it very important to tell him.

“I love you.”

Spock forced his eyes open and let himself smile.

“I love you, also.”

Spock bore Jim down to lie on his left side facing away from him, extricating his penis along the way. He prodded at Jim’s ass, parting the cheeks to peer at the slack hole. Jim gave a little involuntary laugh.

“What are you doing?”

“I wish to see the evidence.”

Jim moaned. “You’re such a secret kink-monster, Spock.” He contracted his asshole, feeling Spock’s come ooze out of him, and heat flashed through him at the sensation and the knowledge that Spock was watching. Two fingers trailed up his crack, and he gasped as Spock shoved them into his ass and worked them around, semen leaking out around them. Jim shuddered and pushed his ass back down on them. He wouldn’t come again today, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy whatever Spock had planned for his asshole. It was a needful thing, that much was established.

“This marks you as mine,” Spock said quietly, moving up behind him. He eased his fingers out of Jim’s ass and wiped them on the covers when he drew them up over their heads. In the darkness, he kept speaking. “That means you mustn’t do foolish things detrimental to your health.” Jim felt something pliant and velvet-soft breech his sphincter, aided by Spock’s steady hand. “You’re not to leave me so early, Jim.” Spock’s groin was flush against Jim’s ass. “You must stay, for as long as it is possible to stay.”

Jim’s breath shook as he exhaled, his face suddenly hot and his eyes prickling. Spock situated himself and slung his arm around Jim’s big, well-loved body, pressing his palm briefly to the tender stretch marks on the underside of his stomach. Jim’s loosened anus didn’t protest the quiescent penis taking up residence within its walls. Spock tucked his face into its rightful place between neck and shoulder, pushed his lame leg between both of Jim’s sturdy ones. He settled his fingertips over Jim’s psi-points and together, in the dreamscape of their partnership, they were not two but one, not damaged but whole, a single soaring consciousness, boundless among the stars.


End file.
